I tested many portable WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP) servers, and the result was that there is only one project that works enough good. That is
USB Webserver. It is a bit old, and it is not developed any more. But nevertheless it works perfect, it is the most easiest to use, and has very small size.
I found Server2Go too big and it works good only with a bundled browser.
Another thing that appeared recently is called
Z:WAMP. It is bigger, but it is entirely OpenSource, works very good, and is under active development. But I still prefer USB Webserver.
If you go here on portable freeware:
Internet - Web Servers (9) - Most popular firstyou can see that my words are true. USB Webserver is the most popular WAMP (the first HFS is only server, not a WAMP). And it is for reason - it works very good.
USB Webserver is not related to any particular browser. So you can get a browser of your choice:
This is also a test that your site works good on the major browsers used now-days.
Also, to work with the MySQL database, there is great portable tool -
HeidiSQL - MySQL made easy. You can use it to backup, restore, browse, optimize, repair and etc. the database.
And there is the OpenSource FTP client
FileZilla. It is portable too. Here are the instructions to move the setings to its folder:
FileZilla - How to extractSo, to synchronize between local and web, we need to:
- get the database from local and upload it to the web using HeidiSQL
- upload the files using FileZilla
And that makes a perfect portable package.
